Writer: Azuka Oforka
Director: Patricia Logue
Azuka Oforka’s searing new play is not an easy watch, because The Women of Llanrumney has something to say… More than say, actually; shout: about the power structures of colonialism, the conflicting and contrasting experience of women living within those structures, the relentless brutalisation of black bodies throughout the slave trade, and, in a twist that feels most apt for The Sherman Theatre, the dark and lesser-known part Wales had to play in it all.
With that backdrop, you’d be forgiven for thinking the two-and-a-bit-hour-long performance would be wall-to-wall discomfort; which it sort of is. But it’s also subtle, nuanced, illuminating, funny, and, above all, thought-provoking.
Centred around an elaborately adorned dining table in ‘the big house’ of Jamaica’s Llanrumney plantation, owned by the Welsh Morgan family and named after their hometown, The Women of Llanrumney confronts its subject matter head on: with racial slurs, uncomfortable dialogue, tense, charged interactions and the unsettled rumbling of rebellion from ‘captive field slaves’ present from the opening scene.
Tracking Annie (Suzanne Packer) and Cerys (Keziah Jospeh), two women enslaved by the Morgan family, as they serve their frequently rum-soaked mistress, Lady Elizabeth (Nia Roberts), both breakfast, and then second-breakfast, as well as numerous other courses across the span of a few days, the play offers an on-the-nose and unapologetically intrusive examination of inequality functioning at its most systemic.
The step change between the first and second acts is acute, reflecting both the rapidly escalating tensions within the big house, and the shifting uneasiness and strengthening call for rebellion that’s building outside, among the field workers across Jamaica’s vast network of plantations.
Because of the venue’s layout and cleverly designed set, the play feels entirely immersive: fists slammed down onto tables cause reverberations throughout the audience, plates smashing shatter almost within arm’s reach, and the sharp quips – at times furious, at others disconcertingly funny – feel close enough to cut you as they whizz through the tension-filled air.
It’s an incredibly impassioned performance from the four actors who make up the entirety of the cast, and Matthew Gravelle does a brilliant job of playing three distinctly different roles, each with wildly different accents.
The pace is clever, stark and painful hypocrisy shines through throughout, and the piece ultimately serves to turn the spotlight firmly on the hazy lines and, at times, extreme leaps across moral boundaries women consistently have to make in order to survive.
Operating on several different planes and showcasing the lived experiences of those who inhabit their own realities – of power and powerlessness, shame and pride, greed and poverty – The Women of Llanrumney encourages audience members to question their own judgements and assumptions against a surprisingly local history that roots the narrative as, firmly, too close to home.
Runs until: 1st June
The Reviews Hub Score
Impassioned
